A Kind of Valediction
by Altariel
Summary: A Minas Tirith ghost story... Faramir, Éowyn, and others. Mithril Awards: Winner - Best Story Focusing on Men.
1. Chapter 1

A mist had settled on the city overnight. Waiting in front of the gates and looking out, the Steward allowed his bearings to slip and, for a moment, all was turned about. Rather than standing before a wall, it seemed instead as if he faced one, and that it was at once both solid and insubstantial. He drew in a silent breath of cold air, and the sensation subsided. Then, peering ahead, he caught it - the first trickling of the watery dawn light. Behind him and above him, somewhere on the walls, a cock crew - 

And the horns answered it, as they had done ten years ago; and the singing rose and washed over the assembled company, and then filled the circles of the City - as it had done ten years ago - the sound of oaths fulfilled, and promises kept, of deliverance instead of destruction. He thought he heard a soft noise behind him, but when he turned his head slightly to glance down the line of lords and captains, they were all still and set. 

The Riders were naming their dead, he realized, singing their names and their deeds in the slow rolling tongue his wife used to soothe their children. Singing of men that had ridden south to defend and die for the homes of other men, and then sleep in that strange land; and singing of their old king (and here he set his hand upon her arm) whose death had been glorious. 'The dead walk with us,' she had said to him once. 'They are a part of what we are.' Gazing at the wall of mist again - which was no longer as dark but still as thick - it seemed to be moving and shifting; something was advancing. Shadows were gathering - and then were resolved, as the King of the Mark and his marshals came forth. The King of Gondor and his steward went to greet them, and then they passed through the gates into the City. 

The day stayed cold, and thin. They went up through the levels slowly, halting at each gateway to remember those that had once lived on each circle and who had died, at Osgiliath, at the Forts, on the Fields. The houses around them were shrouded by the mist, but as they passed by, their owners would slip out from hidden courts and doorways to meet the procession, to hear the names spoken, to say their farewells. 

_The dead walk with us... Not here in Minas Tirith, he thought. Not any more. Once, perhaps, when old men had sat in crumbling halls and could not see their sons for tombs. As a boy, on winter nights, he would sit by the fire in the servants' hall and listen wide-eyed and rapt to their tales of all the empty houses in the city and their long dead masters that occupied them still. Now men who had once wept as winged terrors flew above them, who had seen evil embodied break down their very gates, whose southern lands had been delivered by the Dead - these men now laughed at tales of hauntings, called them the fancies of old women, and turned instead to talk of more important matters; of commerce, of business, of the doings of their friends - and their enemies. They opened up the long-sealed halls and filled them with their families. How quickly they had forgotten! Ten years, and the world was changed beyond all recognition. The dead walked the streets of the White City no more. _

And he regretted their passing, for all it meant peace, for all it meant that the city looked now to the years ahead and not to the years that were gone. He regretted it, even as it was a validation of his own forefathers, who had not forgotten that men need sons as well as tombs, and who had, in their waiting, kept alive the hope that there would be years ahead. The world was changed. Men were no longer enchanted. The dead walked no more. And he regretted it. 

They had reached the citadel now. Looking down, he could see here and there a rooftop or a spire, but the rest lay under wraps yet. All about him the company was dispersing. In the evening they would meet again in Merethrond, for while they had now remembered their dead, they had not yet celebrated their victory. 

'Shall we go?'

He turned to look at his wife. 

'You go,' he said, coming to the decision at last. 'There is something I wish to do first.'

She frowned, and he thought for a moment she might try to dissuade him - which would be useless, or offer to accompany him - which would not be accepted; but instead she sighed a little, and then they kissed. As they parted she brushed her lips against his cheek. 'You must not stay too long in the past,' she murmured. _The dead are a part of what we are, he chided her silently, but just smiled, and nodded, and left. _

***

The year that Faramir had turned twelve, summer had lasted from the middle of May to the end of September. The city had baked. The streets became dustier and shabbier, and the gardens burnt yellow. Abandoning his usual haunts in search of somewhere cooler, Faramir had spent day after day among the dead. Fenadan, the old porter, had been his conspirator in this, unlocking the gate and letting him through, all the time shaking his head and saying how there would be trouble if ever the Steward came to hear of this - although since it was their shared secret somehow his father never had. Faramir smiled at the memory of the old man now, grasping perhaps for the first time just how much he and his brother had been indulged by many of those around them, and how - without really knowing what they did - they had played without shame on the sympathy granted two motherless boys. 

The old man's grandson Fenatir guarded the door now, and greeted the steward with barely hidden surprise, for Faramir had not been here once in the ten years since he had come to retrieve the crown. Fenatir took out the key and unlocked the door, swinging it open on his lord's behalf. _A part of what we are, Faramir thought guiltily, as he went through. The young man was here in place of his own father, who had died on this day ten years ago. The gate was closed behind him, and Faramir looked down the winding road. The mist was not so heavy here, but enough that the far end and his destination were obscured. _

That long, hot summer, Faramir had wandered the whole of Rath Dínen, but it was the House of the Stewards he had explored the most, and he came to know it as well as his home in the citadel above. Even now he could picture it vividly - the pillared front through which you passed up the steps to the porch, the heavy double doors you had to push _hard; and then all the treasures within - the huge and mercifully shady chamber, the high dome of the ceiling, and line after line of marble tables. They were set in rows of four, with their ladies lying beside them, and a long aisle running through the middle; and if you began at the far left-hand corner you could name them one by one - Mardil, Eradan, Herion, Belegorn; then on to the second row - Húrin, Túrin, Hador, Barahir; the third row, with his father's and his brother's names - Dior, Denethor, Boromir, Cirion; and then past three more rows until you reached the almost empty one. There lay his grandfather and his grandmother, and then there was a gap, and then there lay his mother, and next to her was the table where his brother would lie. _

At the start of the summer, Faramir had, of course, known already the names of all the stewards and their dates, but by the time October brought rain and relief, he knew the names of all their wives too, and how long _they had lived and - although he suspected this was something of interest to him alone - he had learnt also from the inscriptions on the sides of each table which of his ancestors had had two sons, and what __their names had been. And he came to know the faces of each carven man and woman as well as he knew those of his family that lived still. Mardil looked wise, Cirion watchful; the captain for whom his brother had been named was shown in the days of his vigour and not blighted by the wound that the books said had shrunken him. His grandsire was so like his brother that when he first looked upon him it had made him gasp - the sound echoing round the vaulted hall - and he stared at him for a long time; but he did not like to look at his mother's image, for the bleached stone bore little resemblance to the painting that hung in his father's chambers, and yet seemed to call forth memories of her more readily. _

They were all gone now. Ahead of him stood the new building, which he had not seen before and, while it was built to look the same and to match the others that lined the Silent Street, the stone was newer by centuries, and it stood out. To Faramir's eye, the Street looked disfigured. He stood thoughtfully for a while at the foot of the steps, and then went up towards the porch. Each step seemed as yet untrodden. The old ones had been worn away by the passing years. He halted again at the double doors, chewing at a nail and wondering if he was doing no more than tormenting himself coming here. But the dead are part of what we are, and he knew in his heart that he could torment himself just as easily back in the citadel or even as far away as Emyn Arnen. And so it was rather wryly that he finally pushed hard at the door and went inside. 

The chamber was lit by lanterns, but still it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. And then he saw to his astonishment that the place was completely empty. There was nothing here. 

Faramir stood on the threshold and tried to think what it was he had been expecting. A row of tables at least, he thought, his features screwing into a frown. Only a single one, with the spaces where he and Éowyn would one day lie, and then where his little boy would be set to rest in time. He had steeled himself for this and now the absence upset him. _Why are they not here? he wondered, taking a step or two forward. Had someone perhaps thought that if ever the Steward did make a pilgrimage here he would not want even more reminders of his mortality? _

It was hardly as if the place was filled with them, he thought, and was surprised to find how bitter he was at this, at how much he felt... _cheated. What __had he been expecting, he asked himself as he walked on across the bare chamber. To see the dead? To talk to them? To see... him? Again and again, as a boy - and, now and then, as a man - he had been told he had too much imagination. But the __emptiness of this place confounded him. Had he hoped for some resolution, for some kind of ending to the fear which even so long afterwards could still catch him suddenly, and beset him with doubts about himself and his place? If he __had hoped for this, he would have to find it elsewhere. For here he was face to face with a blank wall. _

At the far end of the hall he turned, leaned against the stone, and looked back the way he had just come. And then he put his hand to his brow and, very quietly, he began to laugh. He had spent so long avoiding this place and all it meant, and now it turned out to be something completely different. He should have come here years ago, he thought, shaking his head. Too much imagination. The dead did not walk the streets of Minas Tirith any more. How Éowyn would laugh too when he told her, and he smiled in anticipation. 

A noise made him look up. At the far end of the chamber, the door was slowly closing. _I did not hear the wind pick up. Then a mist began to fill the hall, swirling towards him. __And I did not think the windows in these houses opened. _

The mist drifted ever closer and, he realized now, it seemed to be picking up speed. All the lanterns went out. Faramir pushed himself away from the wall - 

And then the mist resolved itself into something wholly familiar. 

'Well,' said the Steward of Gondor faintly, as the grey fingers took him, 'I was not expecting _all of you.'_

**_To be continued... _**


	2. Chapter 2

Throughout his life, understanding had been a questionable gift. He knew that sometimes he applied his insight with impunity, and he tried to temper its effects with compassion. Even so, not all men were content to fall within his purview, did not like to see themselves completely known and explicable. His rank permitted it - sometimes forced it - but it had not been so with his father. Latterly, Faramir had concluded that his mistake had not been so much in understanding his father as well as he did other men, but in being at a loss with what to do with that knowledge. Deference had irritated Denethor; fear had provoked him; and as for compassion - Faramir would not have dared. And so round and round they had circled, eyeing each other, and mistrust had grown between them like a thicket, tinder dry.

A questionable gift, then; for to experience almost as if they were his own the emotion and mind of another was disconcerting - but it was an extra sense for him, another eye on men and their inner worlds, one upon which his judgement had come to depend. He explored others cautiously, for he knew too well how it was to be the object of an unremitting eye. Yet neither his own empathy nor his father's scrutiny had prepared him for the caress of those shades as they prised open the vault of his mind, and took possession.

His vision clouded over, and the chamber around him seemed to fade. He closed his eyes to clear them, and tried to speak.

_What is it that you want...?_ But the words stuck in his throat and he could not make a sound. As he felt a wave of panic rise in his breast, a voice came through the mist, a young man's voice, and rising in concern.

'My lord steward? Are you ill?'

In his confusion, Faramir could not place the speaker. Had Fenatir followed him? But it did not sound like the porter...

'Are you ill?' the voice said again, more urgently this time. 'My lord Mardil, what ails you?'

Faramir opened his eyes. 

He was in the council chamber in the White Tower, and a thousand questions flooded his thoughts at once. _What happened? How do I come to be here and not in Rath Dínen? Did I faint?_ And then he let the question that had been knocking for attention coalesce into thought, as his eyes came into focus on the young man seated beside him, whose face seemed familiar but which he could not place. _What did you just call me...?_

'My lord Mardil,' the man said, as if in answer, and Faramir stared back at him in silent disbelief. 'Father,' the young lord said at last, hesitantly touching his arm, 'Are you ill?'

Dreams had been constant companions throughout his life - disturbing his sleep and growing in intensity in those later days, erupting at last even into the waking world. He dreamt less often in these days of peace, although still sometimes he would watch the wall of water take the Land of Gift, would hear the cries of his retreating men become the crackle of a bonfire, would look upon her pale and fragile figure as she destroyed the monster - and then wake to marvel at the fact that she slept beside him. He knew the pellucidity of dreams, the special quality of their illumination, how they were brighter and sharper and more actual. And, as the veteran of a thousand visions, he knew that what he saw now was _real_. He was sitting in the council chamber of the White Tower, the young man before him was called Eradan, and he was indeed the Steward of Gondor - and the first to rule the realm.

'What have you seen?' his son asked him, gently.

Faramir opened his mouth to speak again, to beg for release or at least for some explanation, and a voice came this time - but it was not his own, and he did not control it.

'They are dead,' Mardil said, with flat certainty. 'The King will not return. I should have tried harder to restrain him.'

Eradan did not reply at once, and bowed his head. 'Eärnur was not the kind of man to be denied,' he said at length. 'That you restrained him as long as you did was remarkable enough.'

Mardil rose and walked towards the long window to look eastward. The morning sun sparkled on the fountain and the White Tree glimmered. 'I fear we may long regret the day our grandsire spoke against the claim from the north.'

'This is the kingdom of the heirs of Anárion, sir,' Eradan answered quietly, but firmly. 'He had no claim.'

'And now _we_ have no king,' Mardil said sharply; and regretted his tone as the younger man's head bowed again. 'Forgive me, my son,' he said, in a softer voice. 'I am filled with fear for this land. It did not take a Witch-king to sack Osgiliath! The ruling house of Gondor achieved that by itself! And where should we look now? For even if the council _would_ accept an heir of Isildur, the northern kings are gone.'

Eradan walked across the chamber and set his hand again upon his father's arm. 'There is still the line of stewards.'

'We are servants of the king, Eradan - not kings ourselves. If we indeed seek another war within Gondor, that would be the surest way to achieve it.'

'You misunderstand me, sir. Indeed, no, we are not kings, and you speak as wisely as ever when you warn against civil war. But, sir - _father_ - you must heed my counsel. This is a time for caution, yes, but not for hesitation. If our house does not stand firm now, then Gondor _will _be ruined. The kingship will become naught but a prize for warlords, to be bought and sold and battled over by mercenaries. Is this to be the fate of all the dignity of Númenor?' Eradan grasped his father's hands between his own, and Mardil felt from their trembling the grief his son was concealing. 'We are the house of _stewards_, sir. The kingship is not our property, but it _is _our charge. If we falter now, we will be failing in our duty as much as if we tried to seize the crown ourselves! If we leave the rule of Gondor uncertain, then someone _will _try to seize that crown. And I know in my heart that that man will not be one such as you, sir.'

Mardil Voronwë shifted his hands to place them about his son's. 'To rule as kings and not to be kings?'

'To rule in the name of the king - '

'Until he shall return.'

'Until he shall return.'

For a moment the air seemed to stand still, and then the Steward of Gondor shivered. A mist clouded his eyes, and he was recalled to himself.

_Why have you shown me this?_ Faramir tried to say. _What can I say to you?_ Always he had been proud of his forebears, of what Mardil and his successors had done to secure Gondor when the last king had gone; and to have felt himself the sorrow and fear that had gripped them and yet had not prevented the exercise of their duty - this humbled him even further. He watched now as the rule of the Stewards was secured and so the kingship protected. For Mardil's heirs were blessed with a time of peace, and used it well, for they did not doubt it would not last. Then Faramir watched that peace end; watched the uruks spew out from the east, saw Osgiliath ruined at last - and throughout asked still his silent, unheard questions - _Why are you showing me this? What must I do?_

He watched as Cirion led the lord of the Éothéod up Amon Anwar, watched on as the setting sun glanced upon a black stone set before a low mound, and the last rays of that dying sun seemed to set the letters carved upon the stone ablaze - _lando, ambe, lando..._ Even in the midst of his fear, Faramir could not help but be awed to be here, listening to these words, watching these men; to be present at the moment when the realm was altered irrevocably, and an oath was sworn that had not been heard in Middle-earth since Elendil's day - an oath which had held for five centuries, and by which Gondor had been delivered. 

As the sun died and the shadows of evening gathered, the company descended the hill. Before they departed, Cirion drew his son aside.

'We must return here soon, Hallas. This memorial was set at the mid-point of the kingdom, and that is the case no more.'

Hallas watched sorrowfully as the lines deepened upon his father's face. 'You must not doubt the wisdom of this decision, sir. Already this alliance has borne fruit - '

Cirion smiled. 'And I love that man as a son, and his people fill me with hope! They seem so young! Whereas we...' he sighed. 'Our power wanes, and we diminish, and from today the kingdom has shrunk again - '

'Yet still it endures, father. Still we endure.'

On and on he went, passing through the minds of his forebears, perceiving their thoughts, watching their choices, feeling the dark doubt and solitary fear that grips a man at the end, when he looks at the sum of his days and cannot judge their worth. _How long will I wander like this?_ he thought. _What must I do for them to release me? Or will they keep me here forever?_ This thought filled him with terror, but still it was not so dreadful as the truth which he tried to deny - that he was not wandering, that he was following his forefathers down all their days, and that he knew already the final destination.

He saw the White Tree wither and die, and Ithilien fall, and the sons of Folcwine give their lives for their oath at Poros. In the north, Curunír seized Isengard - the gift of the Stewards - and made it a fortress. And in the east, the Enemy declared himself, and the Shadow lengthened over Gondor. Each choice seemed now invidious, fraught with peril, and to come at no small cost. So it was that Faramir looked upon his grandfather as Ecthelion chose his captain above his son, saving Pelargir whilst knowing what the price would be. And when the Eagle of the Star departed and Ecthelion closed his eyes praying to the Valar to deliver Gondor, Denethor opened the door and climbed the stairs, and Faramir watched through his father's eyes as he gazed into the clear and cloudy depths of the _palantír_.

  


**_To be continued... _**


	3. Chapter 3

At the very end, it did flicker through his mind that he might not have chanced that first sight if he had foreseen the end. At the time - and each time after, as he strained a little further - it had been worthwhile. It had been necessary. It had been his duty.

He stretched his gaze first across the southern fiefdoms and across Rohan; this was safe, but worthwhile. Encouraged, he touched Isengard and then Ithilien; with caution, but he thought it necessary. For a long time, he averted his eyes from what lay beyond the mountains, pushed instead eastwards and into the far south, watching them move, watching them rise, watching them eye the West. Sometimes, it would seem as if he was the still point, while the world shifted and turned towards him. But the mountains loomed ever taller in his thoughts, and whatever else moved, he knew a still point lay behind them too. And at last he turned that way and looked, and saw the Eye.

At the very end, he could not say at what point those around him had dissolved. She had been spectral before they buried her; he who had signified purpose had been destroyed; and the other looked at him, saw him - and then lowered his eyes and disregarded him. It proved easy to displace this chaos, to set them all aside for the certainty of the still point. By the end he had achieved order, and a balance; between the Eye and the West, between the persistent will for domination and the resisting will in opposition, which had then _snapped _- and all that remained was the sacrifice, and the fire.

He could hear its dark music in his ears, hear the whisper build to a crescendo. He could feel it around him, feel the tongues of flame lick against his flesh. And he knew it was within him, tearing up through his veins and spreading out through his limbs, burning him up like fever. It was remorseless, insatiable - and ineluctable. It was the price that had to be paid.

The smoke rose, filling his eyes and stinging them, until he was forced to close them. He began to gasp, for the air around him had thickened, and clogged his breathing. In desperation, he groped around with outstretched hands - and touched the cold solidity of the wall. He leaned back against it, and its chill seeped through him. He put his arms about himself and then, slowly, he opened his eyes and raised them.

They were all there. Standing before him, an arc of grey figures, watching him. He looked down the line. Mardil, Eradan, Herion, Belegorn; onwards past Cirion and Hallas, to his great-grandfather, to his grandfather... and then he stopped and turned his head away.

They were waiting. But what could he say to them, these men who had ruled a kingdom but never usurped it, who had kept their faith and their oath so that he - who had not even been born to the part - could carry out their final act and surrender their charge to its rightful owner? What was there to say that would convince them that he was a worthy successor? His eyes strayed again to the end of the line, but still he could not look at him directly. From the corner of his eye, he could make out the shape of that final figure, and it seemed to be set a little apart from the rest; it seemed to break the line.

The shock of realization came like a physical blow. Bracing his back against the wall, Faramir slid to the ground and sat for a while with his head n his hands. This was indeed a test - but not of _him_, not of his own worthiness. His forefathers stood before him, awaiting the verdict of the living, awaiting judgement - and the last not least.

Did they truly know naught of all that had happened? Did Mardil Voronwë not know which banner now flew above the White City? Did Cirion not know that by yielding a part of the kingdom, the kingdom had been delivered? Did his father know _nothing_?

_How could they know? _ he thought. _Who else would come to tell them?_

Faramir raised his head and, as he spoke, he looked in turn at each face of the familiar compound ghost.

'You did not fail,' he said, and his voice rang out across the chamber, with all the authority of a steward and a prince, with all the authority of the living. 'You did not fail. Your choices were right choices. There is a _king!_ - '

Here each one seemed to sigh. Faramir looked at them again, one by one, and not, this time, in fear; and, coming to the end, their eyes met at last, and held.

' - And I have a son,' he said softly. 'And not a tomb.'

And at that, it seemed that the final figure fell into line, or perhaps the rest had shifted forward to accept him. For the merest fraction of a second, the completed line held - and then the shades dissolved into one another, into a grey mist. The air shifted, and Faramir felt a touch upon his face, that under other circumstances he might have called a caress - then the mist rose into the high dome, lingered for a moment, and was gone. Faramir lowered his head back into his hands.

In time, he looked up and saw that all the lanterns were burning again. He stood up, awkwardly, and looked around the hall. It was empty. He walked slowly towards the door, footsteps echoing, and, setting his hand upon the door handle, turned to look back for a moment. He would not come here again, he knew, not as a living man. There was no need. The dead no longer walked, and they are but a part of what we are. He pulled the door open, crossed the threshold, and left. Closing the door carefully behind him, he saw now that while the old one had borne the seal of the Stewards, that was not carved here. He traced his fingers across the device of the Princes of Ithilien. For the Ruling Stewards had departed, and in their surrender had achieved their purpose, and received their due.

Outside, dusk was fast approaching, and the mist had gone completely from the Hallows. The sky above was clear, but its blue would soon be dark. He walked quickly along the Silent Street, shivering a little from the chill of an evening in early spring. At his summons, Fenatir came and opened the gate, and Faramir passed through.

'Did you see your dead?' the young man asked softly.

Faramir looked at him in surprise; and then remembered how for some in Minas Tirith the dead were still close. 'Yes,' he replied. 'And released them.'

The young porter gave him a dry smile. 'Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but - they have needed you these many years,' he said, as he locked the gate. And since Faramir could not disagree, he just smiled back a little at their shared knowledge, and then nodded his farewell.

The mist had departed from Minas Tirith. Faramir stood for a while looking down at all the walls and towers of the circles below, watching the lanterns being lit. Above him, high upon the keel, a horn was signalling the end of the day. At home, too, they would be lighting the lamps, and his children would be playing, and she would take his hand and hold it. He turned away from the wall, and disappeared up into the high city.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you to Niliwen for the Nuzgûl, M. for the plot, and Anglachel for a very good post to HA about Faramir.

The historical information is from Appendix A: 'Annals of the Kings and Rulers'. I also drew on the splendid account of 'Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan' from _Unfinished Tales_.


End file.
